Letter from the U.K.: If We’re Turning Off Social Media, I Want News Channels Shut Down, Too

[kpete]

Letter from the U.K.: If We’re Turning Off Social Media, I Want News Channels Shut Down, Too




...............you can hardly pin the blame solely on social media when rolling news channels like BBC News 24 and Sky News are running looped footage of burning buildings, overlaid with interviews with those who’d lost property and possessions in the looting. It might have been passed through an editorial filter, but continually presenting the worst of the footage creates a very skewed representation of reality.

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On the flip side, social networks allow for others to debunk claims, rapidly establishing what the facts about a situation are with thousands of eyes on the ground. One cyclist in Bristol was even taking requests from Twitter to go around, fact-checking whether buildings were in fact damaged or not. It’s hard for traditional news infrastructure to cope with situations where violence is springing up in multiple locations simultaneously, but it’s trivial to set up filters for social media that cut through the rumour to deliver eyewitness accounts. Filtering out any tweet with the word “apparently” in would be a good start.

So if we’re turning off social media for “safety”, why aren’t we shutting down television networks at the same time? Why aren’t politicians demanding that news channels, with their greater reach and potential to panic the public, be turned off during exceptional circumstances, too? After all, it’s all for the safety of the public. Right?

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http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/08/turn-off-social-media-and-news/

[FirstLight]

1. another case of

corporate view vs the people on the ground... maybe?

Is there still stuff going on in the UK or did it dissapate?

[MADem]

2. I do agree that they don't need to show the same fucking thing over and over.

Those planes hitting the WTC, for example. How many times did they show that crap? It was on a continuous loop for what seemed like a month. I imagine we'll be "treated" to it yet again on the anniversary date. ICK.